CATALOGUE 

OF  AN  EXHIBmON  OF 


Etchings  and  Drt  Points 

BY 

CHI  LDE 
HA  S S A M 

(§ 


FREDERICK  KEPPEL  & CO. 
4 EAST  39YH  STREET 
NEW  YORK 


MARCH  7tH  ro  24TH 
1923 


CArALOGUE 
OF  AN  EXHIBITION  OF 

Etchings  and  Drt  Points 

BT 

CHILDE 
HA  S SAM 

NATIONAL  ACADEMICIAN 
MEMBER  OF  THE  AMERICAN  ACADEMT 
OF  ARTS  AND  LETTERS 


FREDERICK  KEPPEL  & CO. 
4 EAST  39TH  STREET 
NEW  YORK 


MARCH  7TH  TO  24TH 
1923 


February  23,  1923. 


Dear  Hassam: 

I have  been  looking  at  your  new  plates,  and 
at  some  of  the  old  ones,  which  Keppels  tell 
me  you  are  about  to  show  in  their  gallery.  I 
think  it  will  be  a most  interesting  exhibition, 
for  two  reasons:  first,  because  the  plates  are 
good,  and,  second,  because  they  are  your  own 
subjects.  They  are  yoUy  and  that  is  what  most 
etchers  work  is  not,  though  that,  as  you  and 
I know,  is  the  basis  of  all  etching  which  is 
worth  anything,  but  most  etching  is  worth 
nothing!  Besides  your  things  are  not  the 
products  of  sudden  commissions  to  fill  a long- 
felt  want,  or  to  be  in  the  fashion  of  the  mo- 
ment, of  rapid  trips  with  only  time  to  make 
bad  sketches,  often  only  to  buy  picture  post- 
cards, and  then  rush  back  to  try  to  accomplish 
the  impossible,  though  the  manufacture  of 
such  machines  may  fill  the  manufacturers’ 
pockets  and  fool  his  public — but  the  subjects 
of  your  plates  are  the  subjects  you  know,  the 
motives  about  you  that  you  always  have 
known,  and  now  in  your  ripe  years  are  able  to 
put  on  copper  when  you  want  and  because 
you  know  they  can  only  be  done  by  that 
fascinating,  entangling,  maddening  method — 
etching! 

But  my  dear  Hassam,  why  am  I writing  this 
poppy-cock  and  drivel?  You  know  and  I 
know,  and  mighty  few  other  of  the  people 
who  have  rushed  into  art  in  this  country 
know,  that  America,  our  country,  is  full  of 
subjects,  and  that  our  New  York  is  the  most 
marvellous  and  endless  subject  on  the  face  of 
the  earth.  We  have  been  trying  to  show  this, 


and  teach  this,  and  put  our  preaching  before 
the  blind,  the  halt,  and  the  thieves  we  have 
been  the  prey  of  for  years,  and  your  show  is 
another  proof  that  New  England  is  worth 
doing,  that  there  are  American  women  still 
left  who  do  not  look  like  flappers,  that  there 
are  other  methods  besides  tracing  photographs, 
of  drawing  nudes,  and  that  there  are  other 
ways  and  other  motives  than  yours  and  mine 
for  etching  New  York. 

These  are  the  reasons  why  I like  your 
work,  built  up  “on  the  knowledge  of  a life- 
time,” and  not  upon  expressionism,  cubism, 
incompetence  and  conceit,  the  backbone  of  the 
rot  and  rubbish  foisted  by  strange  sharpers 
and  incompetents — there  are  lots  of  blatant 
Americans,  as  they  call  themselves,  among 
them — fooling  the  most  gullible  and  igno- 
rant public  in  the  world,  crying  they  know  not 
why,  save  as  an  investment,  for  art  and  get- 
ting artlessness. 

We  also  know  that  James  McNeill  Whistler 
is  the  greatest  of  etchers,  because  his  aims  and 
his  accomplishments  were  the  highest  in  his 
practice  of  “the  science  of  the  beautiful”  in 
the  science  of  etching  the  most  perfect  and  not 
the  easy,  empty  products  of  a misspent  day. 
And  sure  in  our  convictions  and  in  our  beliefs 
we  will  go  on,  my  dear  Hassam,  till  the  end 
of  the  chapter,  to  the  best  of  our  ability, 
founded  upon  the  traditions  of  the  ages  in  art, 
and  not  upon  the  latest  fake  and  cut  to  escape 
beauty  and  avoid  workj  for  we  know  that  with- 
out the  highest  aims  and  the  hardest  work, 
nothing  decent  can  be  done.  Most  people  in 
art  don’t  know  enough  to  come  in  when  it 


rains,  or  dare  to  go  out  for  fear  they  will  get 
their  feet  wet.  And  we  are  also,  though  that 
is  not  our  aim,  showing  the  people  that  they 
can  collect  good  work  without  being  million- 
aires, and  that  if  they  collect — these  collec- 
tors— the  works  of  their  contemporaries  rather 
than  confining  themselves  to  the  works  of 
their  predecessors,  they  will  be  doing  some- 
thing for  art,  something  for  artists,  and  some- 
thing for  themselves.  We,  you  and  I,  in  our 
prints  are  giving  them  the  chance  and  are 
going  to  go  on  doing  so.  Because  we  love  art, 
and  because  we  love  this  undiscovered  country 
— our  country — which  is  full  of  art — though 
near  swamped  by  artless  artfulness. 

So  let  us  go  on  together.  We  started  to- 
gether, we  have  worked  together  as  friendly . 
rivals,  each  in  his  own  way,  and  we  will  go  on 
together  to  the  end. 


Joseph  Pennell. 


HiLDE  H ASSAM  IS,  in  his  rare  moods, 
an  impressionist  of  remarkable  abil- 
ity— which  appeals  strongly  to  all 
good  painters.  I have  always  felt 
that  so  direct  an  observer  would  add  a new 
note  in  etching,  and  I have,  with  others  in  the 
past  several  years,  tried  to  awaken  his  interest 
in  the  needle.  He  now  has  produced  in  this 
line  much  that  needs  no  words  to  recommend, 
and  I heartily  wish  him  the  success  that  is 
his  due. 


J.  Alden  Weir. 


\ 


► 


( 

I 


CATALOGUE 


1 The  Athenaeum,  Portsmouth 

2 The  Chimneys,  Portsmouth 

3 Sunset,  Constable’s  Hook 

4 Cos  Cob,  Conn. 

5 The  Old  Toll  Bridge 

6 Palmer’s  Dock,  Cos  Cob 

7 Elms  in  May 

8 The  Dutch  Door 

9 The  White  Kimono 

10  The  Steps 

11  The  Writing  Desk 

12  The  Old  House,  Cos  Cob 

13  Toby’s,  Cos  Cob 

14  Old  Lace 

15  Cos  Cob  Dock 

16  Portrait 

17  Calvary  Church  in  Snow 

18  The  Church  Across  the  Way 

19  Battery  Park 

20  Washington’s  Birthday : Fifth  Avenue  and 

23rd  Street 

21  Church  Doorway,  Snow 

22  Fifth  Avenue,  Noon 

23  The  Waning  Moon 

24  Nocturne:  Cos  Cob 

25  Portsmouth  Doorway 

26  Newport  Harbor 


27 

28 

29 

30 

31 

32 

33 

34 

35 

36 

37 

38 

39 

40 

41 

42 

43 

44 

45 

46 

47 

48 

49 

50 

51 

52 

53 

54 


Newfields,  N.  H. 

John  Burroughs 

Self-Portrait 

Helen  Burke 

Polly  Kane 

Easthampton 

Long  Island  Landscape 

Water  Mill,  L.  I. 

Hickories  in  a Hayfield 

Midsummer 

The  Deep  Sea  Bathers 

C.  H.  1920 

Anna 

The  Hay  Barn 

The  Church  Tower,  Portsmouth 
Lyon  Gardiner  House,  Easthampton 
Old  Doorway,  Easthampton 
The  Little  Willows 
The  Beach,  Easthampton 
Rain  Drops  and  Surf,  Easthampton 
In  the  Surf,  Easthampton 
Portrait  of  Mrs.  K.  Van  R. 

Home  Sweet  Home  Cottage 

Claire  Martel 

The  Surf  Swimmer 

The  Stockbridge  Bowl 

Posey  Rook 

The  Play  of  Light 


r)5 

56 

57 

58 

59 

60 

61 

62 

63 

64 

65 

66 

67 

68 

69 

70 

71 


My  Model  in  a Fur  Coat 
Sunset,  Easthampton 
Mdlle.  Erminie  Gagnon 
The  Napoleon  Girl 
Along  the  Shore 
My  Model  Resting 

Montauk  Beach  * 

The  Bridge  at  Old  Lyme 
Flying  Swans 
Mary  Mullane 

The  Girl  in  a Modern  Gown  * 

The  Harbor  of  a Thousand  Masts, 

Gloucester 

A House  on  Main  Street,  Easthampton  ^ 

The  Birches  (Drypoint) 

The  Colonial  Church  at  Gloucester 

High  Tide,  Montauk 

The  Little  Church  Around  the  Corner 


I 


Printing  House  of 
William  Edwin  Rudoe 
Neva  York  City 


